assimilated and “hyphenated” point of view. What
makes the relationship even more complex is that
Olivia is a young child while Li Kwan is an adult
and thus becomes something close to another ma-
ternal figure to Olivia. And yet Olivia knows in-
tuitively how to negotiate within American society,
whereas Li Kwan remains a somewhat awkward, if
enthusiastic, outsider.
Although it is set primarily in the 20th century,
the narrative reaches back to 19th-century China
during the convulsions of the Taiping Rebellion.
Li Kwan believes that she has been blessed with the
ability to communicate with the “yin,” the spirits of
the dead, and to recall episodes from her previous
reincarnations—in particular, her life as Nunumu,
a servant to British missionaries who became in-
volved in very melodramatic misadventures. When
the narrative returns to the present, Olivia, now 38
years old and about to break up her marriage to
Simon Bishop, agrees to travel with her husband
and Li Kwan to the latter’s home village in China.
Once there, Olivia begins to see the validity of her
half sister’s incredible stories; in that peculiarly
mystical atmosphere, Olivia also begins to recon-
cile with her husband. Ultimately, it becomes clear
that, by helping Olivia and Simon stay together, Li
Kwan is compensating for a lapse in judgment that
she had as Nunumu.
The critical response to this novel has been more
mixed than the responses to her other works. The
major point of contention is Li Kwan’s mystical
powers. Those who accept Li Kwan’s preternatural
experiences as a credible aspect of the novel’s mi-
lieu have praised the novel as representing, at least
in some ways, a narrative and thematic advance-
ment over Tan’s first two novels. But other readers
have found Li Kwan’s anomalous experiences to
be an elaborate gimmick that finally seems more
forced than credible or even enlightening. Interest-
ingly, both admirers and critics of the novel have
asserted that the basic characterization of Li Kwan
is one of the novel’s greatest strengths.
Bibliography
Lee, Ken-fan. “Cultural Translation and the Exorcist:
A Reading of Kingston’s and Tan’s Ghost Stories.”
MELUS 29 (Summer 2004): 105–127.
Ma, Sheng-mei. “ ‘Chinese and Dogs’ in Amy Tan’s The
Hundred Secret Senses: Ethnicizing the Primitive à
la New Age.” MELUS 26 (Spring 2001): 29–44.
Unali, Lina. “Americanization and Hybridization in
The Hundred Secret Senses.” Hitting Critical Mass:
A Journal of Asian American Cultural Criticism 4
(Fall 1996): 135–144.
Zhang, Benzi. “Reading Amy Tan’s Hologram: The
Hundred Secret Senses.” International Fiction Re-
view 31, nos. 1–2 (2004): 13–18.
Martin KichHunger: A Novella and Short Stories
Lan Samantha Chang (1998)
This collection by LAN SAMANTHA CHANG includes
the title novella “Hunger” and five short stories,
“Water Names,” “San,” “The Unforgetting,” “The
Eve of the Spirit Festival,” and “Pipa’s Story.” All
the stories are about Chinese immigrants and their
families in America. For the immigrant parents as
well as their children, the haunting memories of the
past make it difficult to achieve “the forgetfulness
that is essential to moving on.” The alienation and
estrangement of the characters become an inevi-
table and painful result of being unable to forget.
“Hunger” tells the story of Tian, a talented vio-
linist who comes to America to continue his edu-
cation in a music school. As a Chinese immigrant,
however, he is forced to work in a Chinese res-
taurant. He desperately seeks to realize his dream
in his two daughters, but to no avail because one
daughter is tone-deaf while the other, though tal-
ented, rebels against his pressure and runs away
from home. “The Eve of the Spirit Festival” is a
similar story about a Chinese immigrant father’s
failure to be accepted into an American institution
and the subsequent tension and conflict between
the father and his daughters. The tugging force of
the past is vividly personified in “Water Names,” in
which a grandmother reminds her young Ameri-
can granddaughters of their ancestors living by
the Yangtze River. The reminder triggers a folktale
about a young girl living by the Yangtze River in
ancient China who is enchanted by the spirit of a
drowned young man. In “Pipa’s Story,” set in China116 Hunger: A Novella and Short Stories